September 23rd Hotfixes - Major Class Tuning for Emerald Nightmare

Blizzard has posted a huge round of hotfixes after analyzing the data from the first few days of Emerald Nightmare and Season 1 PvP.

The following specs will receive PvE buffs during the next maintenance period: Frost Death Knight, Balance Druids, Ret Paladins, Warlocks, Arcane and Frost Mage, Elemental Shaman, Fury Warrior, and slight buffs to BM and Survival Hunters, and Assassination Rogues. Havoc Demon Hunters and Arms Warriors will be PvE nerfed, Mistweavers and Marksman Hunters got slight nerfs. While one Shadow Priest ability was buffed, overall they received nerfs as well.

Additional changes may be on the way Edit, we have added them to this post:

Blizzard

ClassesDeveloper’s Notes: After carefully considering the constructive feedback we’ve received over the weekend, we’ve made some revisions to this week’s tuning. The class changes listed in this hotfix update, as well as those from the previous update will be applied during weekly maintenance in each region. Note that several changes from the previous update have been altered or removed, which is indicated by a strikethrough in the notes below.Demon Hunter

Developers' Notes: We would prefer that Surrender to Madness not be as dominant as it is, and that it can't be extended for quite so long. However, addressing this further would require significant changes to the spec beyond what we want to do in a tuning pass at this time. We will look for an opportunity to take a more comprehensive look at this issue in a future patch.

Blizzard

ClassesDevelopers' Notes: As we discussed last week, we've been gathering a massive amount of data based on how each spec has been performing in this first week of raids and Mythic Keystone dungeons, so that we can make a number of tuning changes with next week's realm maintenance. The overall goal of these changes is to buff up some underperforming specs while also reining in a couple of over-performers, without dramatically changing anyone's playstyle or causing them to feel as though the spec they chose to focus on became the “wrong choice.”All of these class changes will be applied during the next scheduled weekly maintenance period in each region. Note that there are also a number of PvP-specific changes, which are noted separately below.Death Knight

Note: Gearing heavily for Mastery was allowing Vengeance Demon Hunters to reach excessively high levels of Physical damage reduction. We're reducing the top-end potential of this effect somewhat, and bringing up the baseline. This should also cause the value of Mastery to be more in line with other stats.

Note: These abilities prevent Insanity drain from increasing while active, which effectively reduces the Insanity drain for the entire remainder the current Voidform. This was proving to be too powerful, so we're now making sure that the damage bonus and Insanity drain from Voidform remain in sync.

Note: We want it to be rewarding when you're able to maintain Surrender to Madness for an extremely long time, but the amount of damage this trait was contributing in those circumstances was excessive.

Note: We're fixing a bug that added multiple extra Windfury procs to each activation of Doom Winds, but adding some Windfury procs back by increasing the baseline activation chance. This should also improve Feral Spirit generation outside of Doom Winds.

PvPDevelopers' Notes: While many of the above changes are beneficial for PvP, some specs need additional tuning for PvP situations. Some of the PvP- specific changes we're making are intended to counteract the above, while others are simply intended to help overall PvP balance.

Battlegrounds

Tank-specialized characters no longer take additional damage while carrying a flag.

Developers' Notes: Previously, we significantly buffed the damage of these potions, but then discovered some bugs that were significantly reducing their effective damage. Now that those bugs have been fixed, their damage contribution is much too high. They should still feel very rewarding to use, but we're bringing them back down to Earth a little.

Fixed a bug that was causing Balance Druids to sometimes engage enemies from unintended great distances with damaging trinket procs. The Grove Darkener's Treads should now switch from Intellect to Agility based on your spec.Professions

Rank 1 of Hearty Feast should now reward one feast instead of five. Subsequent ranks reward a cost reduction, rather than additional food.

Demon Hunters should now get appropriate stats from feasts and other similar sources of buffs.

Quests

In the Withered Army Training scenario, it should be less likely for Leystalker Dro to be hiding somewhere that he wouldn't normally be encountered by clearing the room.

A new Archaeology Quests aura is now displayed while you're on an Archaeology quest in your current zone.

Developers' Notes: This is to make sure you're aware of how many days you have left to complete a large Archaeology project before it expires. We're investigating ways to provide this in the quest tracker and quest log.